


Run

by justbygrace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-18 01:32:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3551078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The post-apocalyptic AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run

The sun is several hours from putting in an appearance when Jay leaves the siren call of sleep to tiptoe through the mostly sleeping camp. Sounds emanating from various tents suggest that not everyone has sworn off the baser desires in favor of survival, though Captain Zack would say this is the basis of survival. Jay doesn't see it like that, but there is no point in arguing and so, for once, he doesn't.

Jethro doesn't startle until Jay is close enough to touch, and if that's what the night watch is like it's a miracle that any of them have survived this long. The boy, man really - none of them are children anymore - doesn't protest when the offer of sleep is made and Jay scales the tree with ease. He doesn't stop until he is out of the majority of foliage, settling in a notch worn from use. His weapons are secured but accessible and his walkie crackles faintly, evidence of the makeover it has gotten far too many times. 

He senses her before he sees her, senses her in the same way that he knows that dawn will break in two hours and twelve minutes and that a squirrel is searching in vain for nuts fifteen meters to his left. She moves with the forest in the way that the birds and what is left of the wildlife do, simply knowing where to step to make no disturbance to her environment. He hardly has to turn his head to find her outline in the darkness, she is four trees to the right and straight across, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight and as watchful as his own.

The first time they met he didn't spot her until her spear was pressed to the spot directly beneath his ear and by then it had been too late to call for any sort of aid. She had taken her time, circling him slowly, admiring his cache of weapons, fingering the worn leather of his jacket, running a finger down his cheekbone, before leaving him where he stood and vanishing into the trees. The next time he saw her he didn't announce it because he was with a tracking party and she was trailing them in the treetops and anything he said was going to end with someone's death and he'd be willing to bet it wouldn't be hers. After that he has seen her every time he has left camp and a few times from the relative safety of the fires.

Jay hasn't said anything, not even to Zack, and he questions this decision nearly every day. Isn't a sign of life what they've been waiting for? Isn't it what they've come here for? To see if anyone can survive on this inhospitable land, to send back word that it is safe and the others can come, to forge a new life in the wilderness? Zack reminds them of this daily and the others have swallowed the sentiment whole, and so had he, right up until the mysterious one with the golden hair had allowed him to live. In his heart he knows that for all of Zack's virtuous ideals he would not hesitate to hunt her down and torture her to death like he did to the other sign of life, the boy with the strange markings they found their second week. Zack's justifications to those who had seen the deed had been that the boy was obviously incoherent and not an appropriate sign of life, but Jay knew the truth - knew that it was not a sign of life they were to find, it was to be the only life.

She's never ventured this close to their camp before and he worries for her safety before dismissing it for the foolishness that it is - it isn't her safety that is at risk. He's never tried speaking to her before, but there is something about the set of her gaze towards the distant horizon that makes the words die on his lips and he mimics her posture. It takes several moments for his thoughts to settle enough to focus on the spread of land before him and then he is hardly able to smother a curse. There are lights on the river and they are moving at a steady rate, with the current of the water if he can trust his vision at this distance.

His hand goes for his walkie, to say what he doesn't yet know, but she is suddenly there, sharing his branch and lightly stopping the motion of his hand with her own. He can't focus on anything except the pressure of her fingers, her breath tickling his face, her eyes pleading but calculating, and he exhales slowly, willing his heart rate to calm. She shakes her head and backs away, lightly leaping to the next tree and looking back, expectant. Abandoning his post is unheard of, but he moves anyway, clumsier than she but able to make it from tree to tree gradually lower until they hit solid ground and then they are off and running.

Somewhere between the spot where the casualties of this war with the earth are buried and the stream that took another life before they learned how to find water, her hand slides into his own. She has leather covering her palms and it presses warm against his, her fingers interlocking with his like the pieces of Danny's machinery, and though neither of them glance towards one another - the path is too treacherous for such sentiment - there is a flow of understanding that doesn't require such basic methods of communication.

She finds a outcropping of rock he's never noticed and they huddle together, not for warmth or companionship but because the space isn't made for more than one body. He wants to notice her, and indeed his body is acutely aware of hers, but her eyes have already focused on the river and he follows her lead. From this distance it is easier to see that the lights are attached to longboats, not the flimsy canoes that Eddie has his group building, or even the sleek steel he remembers from history lessons when he was young, but sturdy and solid - made for transportation and for battle. They are not more than fifteen minutes steady movement from the beach, and though Jay doesn't know if they'll stop, odds are against them moving past such an obvious display of life - Zack is too cocky to clear areas of their collective footprint.

"You warn your people, I'll warn mine," the voice is low and musically accented and it takes him longer than it should to recognize that it comes from her.

All thoughts of the approaching danger leave him as he twists his head to stare at her. "You speak...English?" After a moment he adds, inanely, "With a London accent?"

She laughs, quietly but with a full body of amusement. "I speak English for your sake, but my accent is my own."

He wants to argue, there are a couple thousand people who'd disagree with her words, but it isn't important. "But I thought you, but you've never, but you..."

She presses a finger to his lips and he shuts them, inhaling a scent that is inexplicably woods and campfire smoke and strawberries. "Our people must be warned of the danger. Those that come from the river are brutal and dangerous. I would offer your people refuge, but mine are no less."

He nods, a hundred questions bursting into his brain and so he opens his mouth and says the least necessary of them all. "What is your name?"

Her lips crook upwards, a half-smile that suggests affection. "Rose."

Rose, his lips form her name silently, attaching it to everything he knows about her and deciding he has never heard anything more perfect. 

"And now you must run, Jay."

"Yes, running." He disentangles himself from the cramped spot and backs slowly away from the opening, allowing her to step out beside him. "Will you be safe?"

"Me?" She shakes herself a little at the question. "It is not my safety you should be concerned with. You must lead your people towards the mine - they will be safer there."

"They won't follow me," he argues, knowing he is wasting valuable time but unable to summon the will to care.

"Then convince them to," she says. "I've heard you speak - you can be compelling when you choose to be. Zack will listen to you because he knows the people trust you. And if you continue to delay the evidence will speak for itself."

He nods at her warning, taking three more steps away before whirling back. "But will I see you again?"

She pauses, considering the ever-lightening sky and the early strains of birdsong, before returning her gaze to him. "If we both survive this and you continue to keep an eye towards the mountain, you will."

He wants to argue, to plead for her to come with him or for him to go with her, but she steps forward into his space and his words die on his tongue. She presses her hands to either side of his chest and bends her head, kissing his cheek, his forehead, his lips, not giving him a chance to respond before retreating out of his reach. 

"Run, Jay, run and don't look back."

He looks at her, commits her face to memory, before turning and running back towards camp. Her name echoes in the wind and he runs to the beat of it in his mind, runs towards camp, to warn Zack of the impending fight, to argue until the first sign of burning grass underscores his words and echoes hers back to him, to lead his people to the mine, to face the battle ahead with courage until he is no longer recognizable, to emerge a different man, and then finally, finally to find her again amidst the ashes.

But before all that he simply runs.


End file.
